what lump? under where? rug, you say?

the japanese fascination with death... blowfish dinners, hara kiri, suicide internet clubs, kamikaze pilots.

i really wonder how this is going to pan out, maybe they'll return to fine craftmanship.

they are the nation that has taken point position in the surge into hyper-modernity since ww2, a bellwether of things to come.

as if radiation respected national boundaries anyway, we are all japanese now, to a growing degree of becquerels. the emperor wants you to take the radiation like men must, with a quiet, phlegmatic dignity, uncomplainingly patriotic and civic-minded subjects under the god of fission.

'The history of public debt is full of irony. It rarely follows our ideas of order and justice.' Thomas Piketty